tbf it’s been like this for 10+ years
Yeah its not going any where any time soon seeing as its growing as a player base from what I remember.
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ye, the game hit all time peak active playerbase last year
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A normal person would realize that progress in f2p games requires time or real money. The player riot we saw was based on the fact that you needed both.
Despite i like your idea of era separation you will see a backlash by people unable or unwilling to welcome the increase of immersion.
Especially players of “useless” nations like Sweden, Israel or even China have either not participated (SWE & Israel) or got the majority of their rather modern equipment after WW 2 (China, France).
The severe skill issues in certain nations are just a result of their popularity, so it seems like that the experienced pilots flying them are in the absolute minority.
If you look at prop Air RB:
US planes are usually not easy to use and the wt meta favors low to medium alt turnfighting - therefore their pilots need postwar aircraft (with artificially lowered BRs) in order to compete with better player skill nations (on average) in actual WW 2 aircraft.
Same with USSR - they have similar skill issues like the average US players whilst their cannons overperform since RS 2.0 - and, ofc, their aircraft excel at low to medium alt. So positioning their few actually good aircraft like the 4.0 Yak-3 well below a contemporary 5.7 Bf 109 G-10 or K-4 is following the same logic.
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I don’t play any WW2 anymore. I don’t have time. Also they can solve the “skill issue” of US planes with one thing they just don’t want to do.
Instead of the crappy outdated " immersion " take off… air start for all , any nation not only US. Start them 5km. Let them play at the altitude the like. The ones that like play lower, dive. The climbers… climb.
Now if someone wants to (side)climb , he spends too much of a much doing this…they won’t do it because grinding. And not everyone cares about their stat card and not everyone cares to have a good match in quality , because they are grinding. i believe most newcomers now care to play a 11.0 and above jet, because those are the jets we grew up with. They won’t give a crap about WW2 tactics and sideclimbing 10 mins. They just see the jet they want to play.
Edit: I forgot. The point is, let them play jets if they want to. At some point they may start playing WW2 as well, because why not. Forcing them to get past WW2 to play the jet they like at this point with so many planes doesn’t help the quality of the matches or retaining the players they start the game for playing jets.
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Make no mistake - Gambling, and by virtue - bad people, do gambling right. Gambling is why we are addicted to losing money and not off learning how to play guitar and learning cool songs. There is a whole psychology behind gambling based games and this isn’t new. People may think they hate gambling, but they actually love it even if its at a subconscious-level.
Imagine defending gambling ROFL
Gaijin kept expanding the ranks throughout the decade, which increased the time required to get to top tier but the total RP required to reach top tier was never reduced. Things should become somewhat easier for those who come late as the saying “you get to enjoy early when you come early, and you get the cheap price when you come latter”.
They did! Newcomers can research 9 of 10 trees with a fat bonus.
Also today you have way more bypass options in higher ranks with squadron and event vehicles.
I dont see an issue with the rate of unlocking vehicles in arb. If you play well it is quite fast - 13.5K rp in a 10.7 plane without any premium or boosts is quite possible while also having a cool match.
Unlocking modules needs a serious overhaul as some planes are unplayable until nearly spaded due to their main advantages being tier 4 modules (specific excess power or fancy missiles)
Tanks need to have the activity coefficient for time spent alive raised from 0.76 to 1.22. The respawn argument does not justify this disparity - you only gain activity coefficient for the single life and it seems to restart when you respawn or at least you get a nasty weighting. If i get 85% activity in a tank and survive 20 minutes, i should get the same activity as in a plane that got 85% activity and 20 minute survival.
(Activity coefficient is:
Seconds vehicle is alive x activity% x 0.76/1.22 if ground/air x economy modifier x 2/1.4 for victory/loss)
Air sb rp rewards dont bother me too much, but i wish we got skill bonus to reward going above and beyond in a 15 minute cycle.
Air sb ec has an sl problem. Spawn cost is absurdly inflated and sl gain falls below sustainable even at a 4:1 kd if you get those 4 kills too fast (in large part because 4:1 is the same as 2:1.). The useful actions system discourages pvp and pushing yourself against competent and challenging opponents as you end up losing sl (or go net zero with premium). Instead it encourages sealclubbing, lobby shopping, giving up at first hint of opposition and abusive gameplay (kill 1 person, afk above airfield and repeat while ignoring your team and victory condition).
The air sb sl economy must be overhauled that unless you are suiciding, teamkilling or griefing/trolling, you will always gain some silver lions for every match and with premium that amount should be significant rather than “we got net zero”).
This requires review of rank 4 and rank 5 aircraft. Why does the horten cost 17k to spawn? Why do the f80, f2h2, meteors, me262s cost 12-17k? Why does the f8f cost 8k?
Change these spawn costs to match air rb or maybe even air arcade and introduce a system that penalizes you for crashing/bailing without sustaining player or non airfield npc damage to prevent abuse.
Give discounts for flying a plane in an uptier lobby to reduce people only flying when theyre the topdog.
Give discounts to next spawn cost for being near an objective when dying.
Introduce a death bank system where you get awarded insurance (like you would sl) for individual actions which reduces your next spawn cost, thus rewarding going above and beyond while preventing excessive income from rigged matches and zombing.
(It costs me 13k to spawn. In rb, killing a plane is worth roughly 4500 sl at rank vii. Thus in asb, if in a rank 7 plane i kill 3 enemies and get shot down, my next respawn is free (in arb it would not be free but would be offset by the sl i gained)).
(Itd be better if we got 4500 sl per kill instead but the sim lobby system is easy to rig and abuse. This increases the income floor for both premium and f2p and doesnt affect the income ceiling)
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This is always a bad argument. Game is a (almost) zero sum scenario…ONE player that plays “well” means five or six (the guys that died for the good player to get kills) OR MORE that will have bad results.
For the progress to work, it must be “quite fast” for the AVERAGE player. (PLEASE notice that i am not claiming it to the BAD players…AVERAGE means average).
And also…i understand grind must be hard-ish to have value and provide sense of accomplishment…i actually like that part…
My issue is more that i would like to play cold war stuff…and grind feels too hard to get there…and once there i can only play a bit before repair costs kick in. Lucky for me that i actually prefer WW2 combat…so i am happy enough.
BUT…a guy coming here to play MBTs or jets will have a huge grind ahead of him…
My past suggestions were
- A second entry point in early cold war (could be combined with higher research costs of late WW2 to make up for it).
- Premium purchases would allow research at same level of purchased vehicle.
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I have to say, those are some pretty terrible suggestions. But hey, I don’t think the grind is too much. I think War Thunder’s grind is easy compared to free-to-play games of old (Navyfield). And I really don’t get the mentality of those who can’t recognise and appreciate WW2 vehicles.
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AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAGAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH
I think that the Helicopter grind is way too much. I only have 2 helicopters: AH-1G Huey Cobra and Alouette German light helicopter. I wish I could get more Russian helicopters but they are way out of my league.
I wish we could access helicopters earlier in the game.
Care to elaborate on why?
- Would bring more (mostly free) players that prefer Modern vehicles into the game
- Would make paying customers able to pay their way into the higher levels
BOTH would remove the need for MONTHS of playing something some players dont like in order they can play what they really like…along the way it would also reduce the number of 1-and-gone players at higher tiers (those who have only one premium)
I can see why Gaijin may dislike the idea…not really why players won’t…
BTW…i used this “mechanic” to play early DDs…otherwise i would have left naval much earlier. (I would still play naval it if work wasn’t taking so much free time…prefer DDs over coastal)
Simple free-to-play psychology. Grind is the game. You can lie to yourself and state otherwise, but you’re playing War Thunder and not some other game that makes vehicles available to you without grind or effort (be it Arma, Battlefield… take your choice). This game follows a strong tradition of free-to-play games where you work your way up from early designs to more advanced designs. I don’t care if you for some reason prefer boring DDs over the funnest vessels in naval (coastal) or whether some kid had the misfortune of growing up when games had already moved onto modern warfare (I grew up with Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Battlefield 1942, and the like) and they can’t fully appreciate WW2 vehicles. I want everyone to work their way through the different eras of vehicles - no matter how long it takes them - months? years? whatever, game will be here waiting for them.
One issue with this is catering.
People who have no appreciation for WW2 air combat will complain, complain and complain that it’s “boring”, “too much time/effort” and whatnot. Gaijin then slashes the 1 hour long ARB game to only 25 minutes, puts airfields and objectives in a way that you only need ~1-2 minutes of flying to engage the enemy and punish side climbing and disciplined flight with automatic A.I ticket bleed (not caused by anyone groundpounding - the game can and will end well before the 25 minute timer passes while you’re having your final 1 vs 1 duel as the last two standing).
The auto ticket bleed was removed, but the culture is still broken and ARB became “fly straight at enemy without smart approaches and try to kill the half of the enemy team that doesn’t even bother to fight back, just straps bombs on P-47 and F4u and makes japanese generals and admirals in late WW2 proud of their holy wind inspired honour.”
Tank battles are the same. Maps are made smaller, flanking routes minimized, APHE boosted beyond compare to make it more and more arcadey and minimize time spent travelling and positioning because “WW2 tanks slow and borign D:.”
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Oh my god how fucking hard is for ppl to understand that this is not an post about ww2 being boring or some shit like that, this is a post about the grind on this game where you have to play for years to reach the endgame, and don’t even try calling this shit an journey…
I’ve responded to Dudes Rug saying splitting WW2 and Post-war would be less impactful than expected.
I argue that it’d be worth it to split the two because Gaijin makes changes that favour post-war gameplay preferences and negatively affect WW2 brackets.
All of this really doesn’t matter, they will not do anything to make the grind better. In fact it’ll actually get worse as time goes on and more top tier vehicles are added.
The problem isn’t the existence of a grind, it’s the extent of it. The massive player strike and protests in 2023 made it clear that War Thunder’s grind wasn’t just demanding, it was excessive, even by free-to-play standards.
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